News of the Week

In science news around the world this week, Europe's flagship Earth observation satellite, Envisat, is still offline; Australian officials announced that part of a planned marine park will be set aside to help protect humpback whales; Mexico's legislature passed a strong, new climate change law; and negotiators from 90 countries agreed on the final design of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Researchers are holding a bake sale to raise awareness of potential budget cuts and how they might affect planetary research. A Greenlandic graphic artist and a group of Danish archaeologists and self-confessed "cartoon nerds" have created a series of action-packed graphic novels on the prehistory of Greenland, from the peopling of the island 4500 years ago to the shamanic traditions of later Dorset culture hunters. And this week's numbers quantify the total volume of groundwater in Africa and deaths if a magnitude-7.3 earthquake strikes Tokyo.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention is seeking to improve nutrition for infants and young children and this year plans to double the 100-strong scientific staff of its Institute of Nutrition and Health.

If Socialist François Hollande wins France's presidential election, he would soften the impact of some of President Nicolas Sarkozy's higher education and research reforms and would try to repeal France's ban on embryonic stem cell research.

A new study of the ocean's changing salinity in this week's issue of Science confirms that a strengthening greenhouse will increase precipitation where it is already relatively high and decrease it where it is already low.

About The Cover

COVER Overlayed scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy images of a single atom (width 1.3 nanometers): tunneling current (gray veil) and force (colored surface) between a tungsten atom and a carbon monoxide molecule. The force shows a strong angular dependence and is attractive (blue minimum) in one direction and repulsive (dark red crescent) in others. The angular dependence of single chemical bonds determines the shape of molecules and crystals. See page 444. Image: Joachim Welker, University of Regensburg